Louisa: Kohl Girl: Barcelona

This spring I took a trip that was long overdue. I was lucky enough and worked hard enough to arrange a two week trip to Europe with a one-two-three punch: Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam. I have compiled some highlights and recommendations for anyone planning to do the same.

With a few exceptions, I eschewed waiting in line for huge tourist attractions and instead opted to see the outside of said attractions and explore neighborhoods and parks.

One notable shared aspect of the cities is the dogs. So many wonderful dogs of all sizes! They made me feel even more comfortable in my surroundings.

Barcelona, 2013

Barcelona is a city I could see myself living in. The people are very warm and casual. Perhaps it is the influence of The Mediterranean Sea.

La Boqueria consists of aisles of vendors selling comestibles. The artfully organized displays of multiple fruits, nuts, cheeses, and chocolates (I’m ignoring the animal heads) made me excessively happy. I joined the hundreds of other tourists who were taking pictures. The fruit juices are squeal-inducing. I drank the juice of a fruit (actually, a cactus) new to me, the pitahaya (known elsewhere as dragon fruit). It is so sweet and gloriously pink!

There are great parks to stroll through or kick back in. Parrots inhabit Barcelona, and there are plenty at all the parks. To my delight, off-leash dogs seem to be tolerated.

The 11-acre Parc de l'Espanya Industrial houses trees and lakes and fountains and a giant metal dragon from which projects two fantastic metal slides.

The Parc de Montjuic is on a hill overlooking the city. This is where most of the Barcelona Olympics (and Barcelona X Games) happened. Cary and I took a funicular up there from the metro station and then took a small cable car down to Barcenoleta, the main beach neighborhood. On another day, we visited the lobby and steps of the National Museum, in front of which lies the Magic Fountain (unfortunately, I didn’t get to see it at night in all its glory)

The Parc de Joan Miro features one of Miro’s huge statues, this of a bird and woman. It is across from the old bullfighting arena (now a mall!)

Of course, the grandest of the parks is Antoni Gaudi’s otherworldly Parc Guell. Gaudi’s structures, for me and for many others, are the most important artworks in the city. And this park (created at the beginning of the 20^th century) allows you to become one with his structure. (Side note: Gaudi died in 1926 after being hit by a tram. Not a majestic end for this incredible artist.) We spent a few hours in the park, walking, taking photos, having a picnic, and listening to a fun ska band (Microguagua) that was playing on one of the paths. Majestic slanted columns support various structures throughout the park. Amazing gates twist and bend and claw intentionally. The main terrace is bordered with a sea serpent bench that curves, smooth and bright, in organic design. Everything, everything, everything, everything is tiled in mosaic. The surface of the tile is usually convex, concave, or undulating. The patterns of colors tell stories that would take hours to read. From the terrace, you can see two structures that look like high-end gingerbread houses. You can also see most of the city and possibly the most famous of Gaudi’s creations, the church named Sagrada Familia. [Construction started in 1882 and is currently “expected” to be finished in 2026. I much prefer parks to churches, but when I go back, I will brave the swarms of tourists to get inside the building and one of the sand castle-like towers, if the wind permits.] Back to Parc Guell. Underneath the serpent terrace is a forest of grand pillars with mosaic pictures placed in the scoops of the ceiling. I wanted to touch all of it. And I could, if I had had the time and the legs of a giraffe. If I lived in Barcelona, I would enjoy the park as much as I could. It might become my place of worship.

The metro is great. Almost all the cars have status bars so you can see what the next stop is. Although efficient and fairly economical, it doesn’t run around the clock every day. Beware of that! We learned the hard way when we left Primavera Sound festival right before 4 am. The cab drivers were extorting people. And some flatly refused to take us to our hotel on the other side of the city. This evoked the rage in Louisa. I may have been screaming on a sidewalk in front of hundreds of people during a full moon in Barcelona. Beastly. We waited in line for a special events bus, the metro finally opened, and eventually we got back to our room.

Primavera Sound is a great festival. The programming is similar to my favorite Austin festival, Fun Fun Fun, and it is expertly run. The approximate attendance is 100,000 over three days. Despite that, entrance was quick and easy both nights we went. After making our way out of a packed metro filled with fellow concert-goers, we marched through dozens of men selling beer illegally on the street. On Saturday night, we saw them running from the cops, stuffing the evidence on top of car wheels, in dumpsters, under bushes… (So if you buy one of those beers, wipe off the top.) The festival is set on the edge of The Mediterranean in a park with many structural bonuses, including a huge covered pavilion with a ropes course (Not in use those nights, unfortunately. Some people made up for this by climbing steep retaining walls and sliding down them.) The food vendors were varied, interesting, and vegetarian-friendly. Something you won’t see at FFF, hundreds of young people with pony keg backpacks and blinking Heineken flags pushing their way through tens of thousands of people to sell plastic cups of beer until the concert’s end—near dawn. Oh, yeah, the festival STARTED about 8 pm and went until about 5 am every night. Café con leche, you are my friend.

Some bands we saw at the festival: Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (still and always my favorite performances ever), Shellac, Thee Oh Sees (oh, how big they are now!), Dead Can Dance, My Bloody Valentine, The Breeders (for a moment), Jesus and Mary Chain, and Swans. Swans built audible structures and stomped them apart. They were brilliant and played a very full set. It was quite cold at 2 am on the beach, but I am glad we stuck it out. We also rode a Ferris wheel as Neurosis played. The one low spot of the festival was having to bail only one song into The Knife’s set. It looked to be an awesome performance, but they were the only band playing at 3:30 am, and the entire park poured into one stage. Suddenly, the sea of people was impossible. And everyone was now 8 ft tall. Although I could somewhat make out the shapes on the Jumbotron, I felt like I was drowning and had to run head-first through the human waters to safety. That preceded the taxi-cab extortion fiasco.

A word about food: hurray! Many places offer a “menu,” a full meal deal, usually including wine or some other drink and dessert.

Some of our favorites (all vegetarian):

Bio made me feel pure inside. I ate a huge salad and some incredible Japanese noodle dish.

Veggie Garden serves hundreds of items at very low prices. Their juice and smoothie options are wonderful, and they have three types of veggie burgers. We sat outside both nights we ate there and watched the parade of people, dogs, and skateboards (could have done without the little brats throwing fireworks at strangers).

What I ate at Sesamo was life-changing. It makes me emotional to think of the smoked watermelon gazpacho, mushroom croquets, and beet gnocchi! This was a fantastic note on which to end our vacation. This restaurant better be there when I come back.

Finally, Barcelona is a Mecca for skateboarding. Wherever there were paved roads, I heard the familiar gravelly voice of skateboard wheels. One of the most prominent spots for skating is the entrance to the MACBA (Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona). This is right in the heart of one of the best areas for bars, restaurants, and shopping, but skaters somehow avoid plowing into the multitudes of tourists.

Nevermind is a new skateboard-themed bar that plays all 90s music and boasts a concrete bowl within. Shelves and wall coverings are made from boards, and monitors and a big screen play skate videos. There are cameras on the bowl so that all patrons can get a better view of the action.